Evaluation of monotonic trends for streamflow in austral Amazon, Brazil: a case study for the Xingu and Tapajós rivers

Abstract

Abstract. This paper has the goal of evaluating monotonic trends in the Xingu and Tapajós river basins in the Austral Amazon region, Brazil. Non-parametric statistical tests such as Mann–Kendall, Bootstrap Mann–Kendall, Sen and Bootstrap Sen are applied on streamflow gauging stations data, to determine the significance and magnitude of possible trends. Data in these river basins is relatively scarce, with time series ranging from twenty to forty years, having many gaps. Former studies indicate a decreasing trend for both annual average and minimum streamflow values in the Tapajós river basin, with 99% confidence level, and a decrease in maximum values in the Xingu river basin, with 90% confidence level. However, past analyses have only used one station near the basin outlet. This study uses data from 7 gauging stations in the Xingu basin and 14 stations in the Tapajós basin. Results indicate opposite trends at the 95% confidence level for different regions in the basins, and for different flow regimes. For the Xingu river basin, trends in the minimum flow for different sub-basins even out at the Altamira station, near its outlet. For the Tapajós river, the southeastern part of the basin has increasing trends, while the southwestern part decreases. At the Itaituba station, they also balance out.